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| Matt (3rd from the front) had never rowed before university. Picture courtesy of Matthew Hulbert. |
I caught up with university rower Matthew Hulbert to chat about his introduction into the world of rowing and the teams progress this season.
You competed in the Head of the River race 2 months ago, which is the biggest continuous boat race on earth and after months of preparation, how did Bournemouth University get on?
Yeah we didn’t do too badly at all. We came 230th out of the 420 boats. It was a good 70 places worse than we had hoped for, as the training building up had been going very well, but unfortunately we didn’t perform as well as we wanted on the day.
It wasn’t the performance your team was hoping for, so what, for you went wrong? Was it just a matter of other competition, or something you could have done better?
Time wise, we finished about 40 seconds worse than intended, and with that many crews competing, within 30 seconds there can be 70 – 100 crews in that time. There were a few things that went wrong for us though; rate wise we weren’t getting as many strokes in per minute as we wanted and we just didn’t really turn up on the day.
There are 2 types of racing you compete in, Regatta and Head races, what are the differences between them?
Well head racing is basically time trials. Boats will go off, usually staggered 15 seconds in between and you’ll race one and get a set time, so obviously best time wins. Regatta, which is what you tend to see at the Olympics, is where you’ll get boats lined up against each other and it will be a knockout competition. So you may race up to 4 or 5 times in 1 day.
Compared to other universities, where does Bournemouth stand in rowing?
It obviously varies year on year. We’re not privileged with the same sort of funding as some of the big uni’s, but we’re improving and holding our own against some of the bigger uni’s. The main target for this though is to qualify for Henley and get racing there.
And what is Henley?
Henley is one the most prestigious boat races, competed in by some of the biggest boat clubs across the UK and Europe as well. Every rower’s goal, no matter what university you’re from is to compete at Henley, and even though qualification is extremely tough, hopefully we’ll be able to make it.
Before Head of the River, how was the season going for you guys?
Yeah we’d been having a really good season building up to the event. We competed in Kingston Head, which is the week before and used as a warm up event. We finished 39th out of 200 boats, so we were really pleased with that result. It was all building nicely to Head of the River, but unfortunately that’s one of the things with rowing, sometimes it’s there and sometimes it isn’t. It’s a frustrating sport by nature but that’s why we love it.
You’d never rowed before university, what made you get involved?
It was always something I’d considered and through the university it’s something that’s much cheaper than doing outside. It’s obviously quite time intensive, and you have to invest a lot in the sport so it was an opportunity that came along which fitted in quite well.
Had any of the team rowed before?
The vast majority of rowers start for their first time when they come to uni. Occasionally you get the odd some that’s rowed at school or a different club, but most pick it up in their first or second year and go from there. It is something you can pick up quite quickly, and because of the amount of training we do, the improvements are vast.
How intense is the training programme?
In your fresher year its 5 times a week and tends to be more social, but when you enter the 2ndyear, it becomes more intense. We train 6 times a week and the sessions tend to be longer, but you’re working towards specific goals so you really push each other and its something you really get enthused with.
What are the ideal traits for a rower?
Size in general is an advantage. It’s one of the few sports where you’ll walk around at 6ft and feel small. Personality wise you need to be very driven, quite stubborn really and thick skinned as there’s a lot of criticism and you need to very self-critical in order to improve.
What’s next for varsity rowing? Any upcoming events?
We’ve got races all through the year; we’ve just been to training camp in Peterborough for a week, where we trained 4 times a day really intensely in preparation for the regatta season in the coming months. Hopefully all of this will build up to qualifying for Henley in June.
Confident of making it to Henley?
Yeah I hope so! The training and results so far has suggested we’re going to stand a very good chance. Obviously competition is incredibly fierce, but we’ve got the competitors and coaches to take us there.
